When you run a company, no matter big or small, you have two choices. Either hide behind the scene things from your users or choose transparency and favour building trust over hiding small things that are not a common practice to share openly.

In Telegraph, we are a small team dedicated to mission of connecting our users in a best possible way, and from day one, we believe building trust and choosing transparency is crucial to our success.

The story we are going to tell here is a scene from our early launch days. Arguably, it is not a common thing for product teams to share their private marketing stories, but we do this in a hope that others who might done this before may feel they are not alone in universe. Also, we hope people who might unwillingly participate to this kind of marketing campaign will recognise the trick.

We sincerely believe this isn’t a violation of Apple’s policies, since we value our partnership immensely.

The story

It was a beautiful evening. Big bitten apple was shining in the second floor of a huge shopping centre. Telegraph was already released to the App Store and was making its way to the devices of our first users.
I walked into the Apple retail store to play with shiny pieces of technology we all have in our pockets anyway, and right at the moment I saw the first iPhone standing proudly on the beautiful shelf, I was hit on the idea to market Telegraph in a different – offline way.

I grabbed the first device and touched blue shiny App Store icon on it. App opened up instantly and I typed word “Telegraph” in the search box. Then I scrolled down to our creation with a lovely pic of a nice girl on the first app screenshot and put the phone back to its beautiful standing. Then I grabbed second phone and did exactly the same. Then third one… Sooner enough the store became a magic location serving dedicated Telegraph offline adds here and there.

It was a mixed feeling. On the one hand, I was proud with a great offline marketing strategy I had just discovered. On the other hand, there was a strong feeling I’ve done something not so right.
Apple facilitated this glorious store not for app creators to pop in, not to buy anything and just open up their apps on iPhones, iPods, iPads and even Macs, but to deliver a great products to their own users. It was Apple’s territory to show off their creations – not mine for sure.

In any event, the crime was committed. To share my heroic adventures with the team, I pulled out my own iPhone and took a picture of proudly yellow iPhone 5C with App Store app opened and the blue logo of Telegraph posing on it.

When I was already out from the store, I looked back and saw young man with a yellow phone in his hands. Did I manage to open Telegraph app page on that one? Did he see my genius advertisement or pressed home button too quick? Will he sign-up and be active on Telegraph? Maybe he is even reading this story right at the moment… Questions like this were stuck in my head for the rest of the evening.

We never did that Apple retail store offline marketing trick again, but I hope this post will give an idea to app creators how to market their apps without spending a dime, and also make visitors of Apple retail stores to take a moment and actually pay attention to the opened screens before pressing the home button. Maybe someone is standing out of the store and looking through the thick glass for you to read the hidden message left exactly for yourself!

We noticed downloads spike that day, either my humble discovery has worked, or I wanted to believe it did so strong.

At the starting point of something new we are usually in doubt needing support and encouragement to make the first step forward. Looking back now when we were starting Telegraph, somewhere deep in our hearts we knew the support and encouragement is ahead. That was our belief. Running Telegraph for months now we know for sure – we have never been wrong here.

Your support, encouragement and dedication were simply incredible from the very beginning. You inspired us to work even harder and follow our dream and mission of Telegraph.

Starting from the very beginning and all the way through these months we were trilled to receive your great feedback and see how engaged you can be with the platform. The inspiration and commitment to refine, listen to your suggestions and add new features was unbelievable.

These few months flew super quick for us. This was the most busy, exciting and inspiring part of our lives coming after the first post we made once Telegraph went life on Apple App Store. Each great and encouraging feedback made us feel more committed to the dream and goal we set for us: build platform that people will love to use and which may bring a little bit more kindness to the world.

Seeing our first users to sign-up, update profiles, make connections, communicate and share incredible content was the one unmatched experience we can never forget.

Since the launch of the app, we have introduced quite a few exciting features and although a lot more is coming, the feedback from You already made us feel that we built something impactful and kind, and most importantly, that there are awesome people out there who just love telegraphing.

We worked hard to make Telegraph more fun, more mature and richer for you. We have a long path ahead with you ensuring that the start was really astonishing to us.

One important milestone was introduction of Telegrams on the platform and we are very serious about that. We can’t wait to see the creativity you apply and make incredible each new tool and feature we are adding to the platform. That is simply amazing.

A big THANK YOU for your support and great portion of inspiration and motivation.

It is 2:14 AM now. I’m alone with a laptop, a few papers on the table and an iPhone with draining battery. It was a long day, but it was a good one.

Today Apple approved first version of Telegraph for the App Store, and this is the beginning of our journey. Journey, which already got behind of it too many late hours, thousand lines of codes and a bunch of dedication and belief. We expect more of that ahead, since journey begins.

It has been long ago the idea to create something useful, unique and extraordinary came to our mind. We wanted to build something that people will love to use, that will bring value, and change little something in people’s lives in a positive way.

We wanted to connect users and do it in a little more personal way. We wanted to hand over a platform and see where users will take it, adopt it and shape it. We wanted to make people smile more and be close to each other even in a distance.

What if there is an app to find a person you have just passed by? What if you can connect right away?

We believe nothing happens without a reason. We believe in a mission – mission of Telegraph.